I agree that we seem to have gotten off topic. I was hoping to make some headway on the other points and then reel it back to the topic of transgender rights; but I think we are now doing circles unfortunately without any headway. With that being said, if there's anything about your topic of transgender rights that you would like to discuss further, then I am all ears.

See your consciousness is part of reality however. Everything you personally experience is objectively real.

What you experience is a construction of your brain of what it thinks the world is; which means it necessarily is not identical to reality itself. Knowledge of reality is not a part of reality: it is the comprehension of that reality.

To be fair, I think you are just using ‘real’ to refer to ‘existence’; so I understand where you are coming from. However, this over-simplifies the conceptual landscape here; as we cannot say things like ‘money exist but is not real’ but instead ‘money is real and a chair is real’. It reduces everything to having the same status of existence in virtue of existing.

I'll still propose that money is objectively real. But that is because thoughts are objectively real.

I think you use ‘objectivity’ to refer to that which the subject experiences; and ‘subjectivity’ is anything pertaining to the subjective experience. If this is true, then even in your own terms money is not objectively real since it only exists insofar as two or more subjects value something at a particular amount.

Would you at least agree, semantics aside, that money does not have the same kind of ‘existence status’ as a chair?

In my opinion it is this very muddying of unclear terms that promotes confusion and unclear thinking on the subject. People are mostly confused when it comes to gender terminology, and I believe at this point it is encouraged to stay that way by design.

It might be better to collapse gender and sex for the sake of the masses; but technically I would say that using the Thomistic concepts of virtuality and reality can really help sublate the two mainstream positions (one being that sex and gender are divorced and the other that they are the exact same).

This is a subjective view of yours Bob.

With all due respect, this is just an assertion that begs the question. I outlined why objectifying the face is ontologically grounded in female nature (as the object of sex); and this does entail, if this is true, that men wearing makeup like women do is feminine and immoral. There’s nothing about this argument I am making that purports subjectivity (e.g., “I think it is immoral for men to wear makeup because I feel like they shouldn’t be”).

In your view, of course, gender isn’t ‘real’ in the sense that it is something that exists like a chair: it ‘exists’ insofar as it is merely the agreement between subjects of what they feel or think should be the case with no objective basis. So, naturally, in your view, I understand why you would push back here and reject it.

Freedom is just a basic descriptor of actionability

True, but freedom is not the kind of capacity for action where one just chooses from options; it is the kind of capacity to will in accord with reason, and this entails that we are more free the more virtuous and biased we are towards what is good.

Think of it this way, to use your example, walking itself is a capacity to move the legs to move around. When properly understood, to be maintain this capacity you have to do things to keep the legs in shape and healthy. There are ‘oughts’ which arise out of the maintenance of that capacity. You are a saying ‘this capacity is not itself normative’, but to me it does entails norms because there is a way it is designed to operate. Even just hypothetically, if you reject that the mere way legs are entail how one should use them, if you want to maintain your capacity to walk then you have to exercise your legs (e.g., you can’t sit 100% of the time: they will be neglected and fail to work properly).

Analogously, freedom is a capacity to will in accord with reason; and this does entail, to maintain and have it, cultivating virtues, an environment conducive to it, and the knowledge of what is good to will in accord with. My main point was that your view entails necessarily that we are less free when we do these things; and this is counter-intuitive. Moreover, my second point is that you lose your freedom by expanding your options in this liberty of indifference kind of way.

Yes, that is both outdated and you have to remember that it was written in an era in which 'free speech' was not a thing

It wasn’t an argument for liberty for excellence in a substantive sense: I was rejoining your claim that implied that we should accept liberty of indifference because it is common now. If that is your view, then you should actually accept liberty for excellence. We aren’t really in disagreement here I don’t think.

Good philosophical practices rely on clear, unambiguous, and fundamental definitions.

Correct, but we have to go beyond clear definitions to determine the truth. We both have clear definitions of freedom here: we must venture beyond mere definitions to determine which gets it more right about what freedom is.

To be clear, freedom for excellence defines freedom as ‘the capacity to will in accord one’s nature’ which is the same as ‘to be in a state most conducive so one’s flourishing’.

If you wish to argue that choosing virtues makes you less free, that is your claim, not mine

I thought you were saying that freedom is about the capacity to choose: do you believe that, in principle, someone can become more free while simultaneously having less options to choose from?

Lets define real. Normally 'real' means 'what is'.

In colloquial speech, ‘to be real’ and ‘to exist’ are interchangeable; but there is a substantial difference between the two. Not everything that has being is a member of reality. For example, the color red that I see exists as a construction of my consciousness but has no membership in reality: if you were to omit my consciousness of the, e.g., red block there would be no redness in the block.

I think we need to use a more sophisticated definition of ‘reality’ here, because otherwise we erode the meaningful distinction I made by simplifying terms. Money is not real: it is inter-subjective—not objective. Money exists, of course! However, it is not a member of reality. E.g., the $100 price of the diamond does not have being like the diamond does. Likewise, the existence of gender, if it is just sociological, does not have membership of reality—it exists as inter-subjective agreement and that is it.

for now we can agree in this thread that gender as a social construct is a purely subjective opinion based purely on emotions, nothing rationally substantive.

Agreed, relative to your theory.

You and I might hold identical views, the key here is you are using gender in my mind as a synonym for sex

Effectively, yes: I hold they are the same. Technically, no: I am leaning more towards sex and gender being virtually but not really distinct.

Is that backed by fact or opinion Bob? Ever see a woman fall in love with a kpop star?

Firstly, I should clarify that men wearing makeup is not always immoral: it is the act of objectifying the face as a man that is immoral, and most of the time that is what makeup is for so it is usually immoral for a man to do. Some men need to wear makeup for TV podcasts not to objectify the face but to avoid camera issues or makeup is done for dead people in coffins so they look more lively, and that doesn’t seem to be threatened by my critique here (unless I am missing something). Kpop stars that are male are engaging in something immoral, under my view, which goes back to my claim about gender realism: in your view, there simply is no right or wrong answer here—it is just people’s tastes—whereas in mine there are facts about this.

Likewise, I agree that women and men can be sociologically or even psychologically conditioned to be attracted to social cues that they should not be; so I have no problem simultaneously admitting that women fall, in modern times, for men that mimick femininity—such as men that wear makeup and do their nails. This is in no way a refutation of the biologically underpinning of such things (like makeup) that I noted before.

No, I get that. My point is that is a choice we are free to make.

With all due respect, this is an unintentional red herring. My point was that if we hold your view that freedom is about making choices and virtues limit choices, then virtues make you less free—irregardless if you freely cultivated them or not. Most people would have the opposite intuition: they would say that virtues make you more free despite them making you have less options. If this is true, then we need to re-evaluate what freedom fundamentally is, because it can’t be focused on having options to choose from in accord with your own will. Your response here has been to note that we can freely choose to cultivate virtues; but I am noting that the virtue itself, once established through free or unfree means, is a restriction on ‘freedom’ in your sense of the term.

I see a very simple and unambiguous use of freedom as "The ability to make a choice within one's capabilities", and then adjectives can come in to modify it so that we both clearly know what each is referring to

I was just providing a rejoinder to your argument that we should hold freedom of indifference because it is more common; by just noting that historically freedom for excellence is much more common.

The classical way of thinking about freedom is that it is the ‘capacity to act with virtue and achieve the human good’ going all the way back to Plato; and during the Age of Enlightenment, which was the precursor for classical liberalism, they started taking liberty of indifference more seriously. Now, we live in a post-classical-liberal world; and we take for granted that ‘freedom’ has to do with making choices, like your definition, when it classically did not mean that. This is doesn’t mean your view is wrong, but that’s why I also gave my counter-examples to show hopefully how your view can be counter-intuitive, such as in the case of having to admit that virtues cause a person to be less free (which is a consequence of your view).

form- full potential
actualization - the whatness of a being's form (Can be less than full potential)

Act is what provides the being to something; and potency is the capacity to change (viz., to have a potential actualized). Act is not the same thing as being: a material being is comprised, in being, of form (act) and potential (matter). Matter is what receives the form: it is what is actualized. For example, I can mold a pot out of clay: the ‘potness’ is the form (act) and the clay is the matter which receives it (potency).

Form and act are identical; and potency is just a something that has potential that could, in principle, be actualized.

There are almost always exceptions and sub categories. I'm not saying it can't be handled, but how does your particular approach handle this problem?

True, but this is one of the many reasons that I think form realism is the only way to coherently account for essence realism. If one says, like I previously noted, that the essence of a thing is embodied in there mere fact that it exhibits some set of essential properties that make it that type of thing, then you are absolutely right that there will always be exceptions where one will want to count a thing as that type even though it doesn’t exhibit all the essential properties (e.g., this cat only has two legs but is still a cat).

Form realism gives the only coherent account because it avoids this issue. If there is a real distinction, not a merely conceptual distinction, between a material being’s form and matter—viz., the actuality that actualizes the potential to be that kind of thing and the stuff that has the potential to be actualized in that manner to be that kind of thing (e.g., the ‘potness’ and the clay)—then even if the matter doesn’t properly get actualized by the form the form still has the fullness of the essence in act. My act of molding the clay into a pot has the fullness of the essence of a pot within it, but perhaps the clay breaks or something. Now, a ‘soul’ is just a type of form that is self-actualizing: it is an act of a being in virtue of which it is alive. In this view, a unified principle of the body, not a mere aggregate of cooperating parts, is what actualizes, dynamically through time, the organism: this is what is called a ‘soul’—it is the form of a living being. All living beings have a soul, including plants. The plant can grow into a tree, e.g., of its own self-development given the right environment: the unified act of its own self-development is its soul. With non-soul forms, with static forms that don’t develop the matter through time of its own accord, there is no possibility of the matter which doesn’t receive the act (form) properly still being that kind of thing because the act doesn’t ‘stay with it’. For example, if the pot breaks after it dries, although the act of molding it contained the fullness of the essence of a pot, that pot is no longer a pot if it cannot fulfill the purpose of a pot (perhaps it has a whole in the bottom now and can’t hold any liquids).

Crucially, with souls (i.e., ‘dynamic forms’ or self-actualizing principles), they contain and stay with, in being, the living being as the full essence which is being actualized, through the self, in time. My unified actualizing principle, which is not the mere aggregate of parts of my body working together, has within it the whole essence of male humanness, which it has to have in order to attempt to actualize the matter—the body—into a fully developed male human; and so even if the matter—the body—does not get actualized properly, due to external factors, the soul has the fullness of the essence of human maleness or femaleness. This means that a man that has, to use your example, testicles inside of them still has the fullness of maleness, which would have the testicles on the outside, in virtue of their soul.

Again, if you take the view that we account for essentialism with the idea that we are just an aggregate of parts working together to cause this emergence of a living being and that we are some type of thing if we have the set of essential properties for that type, then I completely agree that it fails to account for essentialism because there always will be things of that type which truly, in matter, lack some of the essential properties of that type of thing. This is just one of many reasons to abandon this kind of essentialism for either nominalism or form realism.

This is why a handicapped person would not have a right to a handicapped spot, and this would best be considered a privilege?

I am not sure. All I was noting is that they wouldn’t have right because they are handicapped: it would have to be grounded in their nature and being handicapped is a privation of that human nature. I was thinking maybe one could argue cogently that since a human does have the right to walk, it may be coherent to ground proxied rights of helping them move around if they are handicapped. It gets sticky though, because we technically don’t have a right to walk anywhere we want; such as private land. So maybe it is a right to have a handicap parking spot on a public buildings but just a privilege on private ones. I would have to think about that one more.

Another way to see gender is if we took the same biological form of a man in both cultures, but one culture believed that all men should be warriors while another culture believed all men should be scholars. Its not a biological expectation, but a cultural one. This is what I mean by 'subjective'. There is no underlying objective grounding for this expectation, it really is just a societal opinion or pressure.

This is a really good and important point to bring up, because this highlights the differences between modern gender theory and an older kind like mine. Modern gender theory, by associated gender with sociology, has collapsed gender into something that is not real: it is inter-subjective, which is not real. Modern gender theory is a form of gender anti-realism; and this falls prey to the same issues, analogously, with moral anti-realism.

In my view, as a realist about gender, your examples highlight the real disputes between cultures about what the gender facts are where one can be truly wrong or right, more correct or less, about gender; whereas, under modern gender theory as you expound it, there is not true disagreement because there are no facts about gender (since they are just inter-subjective stances that people have of what they expect in people’s behaviors) and so these examples you gave are highlights of equally right stances on gender (because there is no objectively right stance to take) which is just an exposition of the tastes of the given culture.

In my view, there is real, rational disagreement we can have about what gender is and how gender roles work; and so I can admit that cultures have gotten it wrong, some have gotten it sort of right, and some have gotten it sort of wrong.

Whereas your make up example is not a sex expectation, but a gendered one. In ancient Egypt men used to wear make up just as frequently as women. There is no biological aspect that necessitates men or women wear makeup, its a cultural strategy and/or outlook about biological differences that has nothing to do with the 'form' of the biological being itself.

I would say it is a gender fact that women are the one’s that have the role of wearing makeup, although it is morally permissible for them and not obligatory, and as such any culture that said otherwise got the facts wrong, and this is because women a procreative role that makes them the object of sex. This is not to be confused, to be clear, with saying women should be ‘objectified’ in the modern, colloquial sense of that term; but, rather, that the way sexual attraction works when there are two sexes in a species is that one gets aroused by being the object of the sex (viz., of someone putting themselves in them) and the other from taking something as the object of the sex (viz., of themselves putting themselves in someone else). This is not to say that we should be lustful, but loving relationships always involve this dynamic, which should also include a deeper communion between them and the willing of pleasure for both in the sexual act, because without it there can be no such thing as a two-participate sex where both get aroused. Even in non-traditional sex, there is an imperfect resemblance to femininity and masculinity in this sense: it’s necessary for sexual attraction to happen. Makeup is something that attempts to exemplify its object—usually the face—as beautiful, attractive, etc.; and this is to objectify it (which is usually the face). This is an upshot of the way sexual attraction works: a beautiful women is an attractive women, and this is to say that the women taken as an ‘object’ (which is not to say to objectify them lustfully or abuse them) is exemplar of being the kind of sex that receives sex and does not give it. This is why women naturally feel empowered by putting on makeup, dressing up, and being very interested in their outward appearance whereas men do not in the same ways (even in the case that a man cares about his appearance); and this is also why feminine men, like gay men, will also feel empowered and tend to gravitate towards makeup, wearing outfits that show off their figure, etc. These are all naturally grounded in femininity: they are grounded in the natural sexual role that women have.

Yes, the decision to cultivate habits to make good or bad choices makes it easier to continue making those choices, but a person freely chose to cultivate those habits.
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Its not a limit of freedom, its a free choice to build self-discipline. And I would argue self-discipline is about the mind controlling the body, not the other way around

With all due respect, I think you missed my point. I agree that you are freely choosing, in these examples, to cultivate the virtues: my point is that you are freely choosing to make yourself less free. Virtues make you more biased towards what is good which makes you less capable of choosing between options; and most of them actively limit your options (like self-discipline).

I think this contrasts too much with the common understanding of freedom

The reason I don’t find this compelling is because the vast majority of human history has used freedom for excellence—not your nor our society’s modern understanding of it. Freedom of indifference is a new theory that was brought about during classical liberalism. Just to clarify, and this doesn’t mean my theory is true, your theory is the one here that is much younger; so if you are trying to adhere to the ‘common historical understanding’, then it would be uncontroversially true that you should go with liberty for excellence: that one is centuries upon centuries old in the premodern world. Only with the Enlightenment and classical liberalism did people start thinking freedom is about making choices between contrary options.

Forgive me for the double post, but I just thought of another example that provides clarity into our differences on the nature of freedom.

To build self-discipline is inherently to limit one's options to get their body to obey their mind (e.g., I am not going yo indulge myself with this delicious cake because I know I shouldn't and I want to cultivate my brain to obey what I believe I should or shouldn't be doing irregardless of how I feel about it). This would, under your view, limit freedom; but I would argue that it actually makes me more free by limiting my options to cultivate and maintain self-discipline because it makes me more capable of willing in accord with my beliefs of what I think I should be doing and prevents my feelings, desires, passions, etc. from impeding on or overcoming that. I would say I am more free by limiting my options in this way exactly because it sets up my subconscious to be more biased towards what is good for me; which is to will in accord with my reason—it makes me be in a state more conducive to my flourishing.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

I believe this is the crux to why many of the rights requested by trans gender individuals such as mandated pronouns and opposite sex entitlements, are not rights but personal desires.

Agreed; and, moreover, they are trying to get rights that the other sex has—not the rights they have relative to their own sex: that’s what is so controversial about it.

You don't actualize into a form. You are. Your existence is what you are, and that may or may not fit into an abstract that we apply

A ‘form’ is not a ‘concept’ in the sense I am using it: a concept is an idea in a mind, whereas a form is an actualizing principle in a being. A ‘principle’ here is being used to denoted something objective: something which is not stand-dependent nor an aspect of a mind’s ‘subjective experience’. The actualizing principle of a being is its act(uality); and the matter which receives it is its potency (potential).

Which leads me to:

This is what I proposed earlier considering someone who is crippled or has a different hair color.
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There is a whatness to you being Bob Ross
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Does a person with a missing index finger have different rights than someone with five? What If I'm missing my pinky toe?

A real essence is a ‘whatness’ which is inscribed in the being itself objectively: it is not an abstraction of a mind. In the case of a mere concept of what it is to be something, that is, by itself, insufficient to provide intelligibility innate to a being; for it is an idea conjured up by a mind for its own understanding and, consequently, is not something real in the being that it is contemplating. When I conjure up an idea of a circle, that by-itself is just something I use to understand circular beings in reality; but that in-itself provides no innate intelligibility to the circular beings such that they really are circles.

If the essence is real, no matter if one justifies it with form realism or not, then it is embedded in the object itself—not a mere abstraction from a mind.

If an real nature (essence) is intrinsic to the being, then whatever one believes makes it that kind of being as opposed to another must be (1) in that real nature and (2) universal to any kind of that type.

So:

There is a whatness to you being Bob Ross

Essence is never identical to a particular. An essence captures a type of being; which, in principle, could be instantiated in multiple of that type: it’s a genus. It’s gets tricky with God, but let’s put a pin in that one (;

Likewise, I think you are conflating the psychological identity of a being (person) with their ontology. Who I am is unique: there cannot be someone that is me in the sense of ‘me’ as a specific subject; but what I am is common to all male humans. If you remove enough of my personality, maybe who I am changes; but only by changing my biology do you change what I am. Likewise, you can change certain things about me without changing fundamentally what I am; such as swapping out my hair color.

This is what I proposed earlier considering someone who is crippled or has a different hair color.

A cripple cannot have any rights that are grounded in their crippleness, because that is a deprivation of their nature—not a part of their nature. Their nature is such that they should have legs; and, again, I would say they have that nature fully in virtue of their ‘form’ (soul).

They may have certain rights grounded in their nature that grant them special needs; because their right to things pertaining to walking are still a right they have because their nature dictates it—it just wouldn’t be in virtue, intrinsically, of them being crippled that would warrant such rights. Same with losing a pinky.

To be clearer: Expectations about biological sex are not sociological.

A social aspect of human life is any that pertains to inter-subjectivity. When people expect the penis, to take a sex-specific example, to behave, to be purposefully vague, in such-and-such ways is a social expectation grounded in biological sex. There is no such thing as an expectation held by multiple people that is not social; because a group holding an expectation is them inter-subjectively agreeing upon the belief that such-and-such should work this-and-that kind of way.

Any ‘biological expectations’ that are inter-subjective, which would be the vast majority of them, are social expectations; and the only way for there to be an expectation that isn’t social is if it is purely subjective instead of inter-subjective—like if I were the only one that thinks that things should work a specific way.

If this is true, then all I am noting is that social expectations can be grounded in objectivity—including biological sex; and this is go much farther than you might think, such as women wearing makeup as an upshot of their female nature and men not wearing it as a part of their nature.

If we define freedom as, "The ability to act based on what you are", that {freedom for excellence}fits

(emphasis and notes added)

This presupposes the idea, again, that freedom fundamentally is about being able to choose from options; and this is not compatible with freedom being fundamentally about a state of being most conducive to flourishing.

If I cultivate, for example, the virtues; then I am biased towards what is good; so I am less apt to choose ‘freely’ in the sense of purely choosing from contraries; so it follows, under your view, that I am less free the more virtues (or vices) I cultivate. On the contrary, in my view, I don’t need the ability to choose otherwise or to choose from options to be truly free: if I am most able to will in accord with what is good, whatever that state of being might be (which is going to be a state where I, as a human, are most prejudiced towards doing what is right), then I am the most ‘free’ in my view.

This is why I gave the example of God, but admittedly I think it missed its mark. The point was not to get into a debate about the nature of God: I was just trying to demonstrate where these two theories of freedom go when we apply them most radically.

Another famous example, to try again, is the holocaust (or any extremely authoritarian regime that snuffs out ‘freedom’, in your sense, in a dystopian and horrific kind of way). If freedom is about having the ability to choose from contraries (options), then a government that restricts options is restricting freedom; and so it is impossible for one to become more free in an environment that is actively restricting or has restricted people’s ability to choose from options (assuming they don’t rebel or something like that); but if freedom is about being able to will in accord with what is good, which is to be in a state of being more conducive than less to your flourishing, then one can, in fact, become more free even in such an environment.

In the holocaust, as horrific as it was, in a freedom of indifference view it is impossible to say that anyone in a concentration camp became more free as they lived there compared to when they were in normal cities because the Nazis had rounded them up and severely limited their ability to make their own choices; however, in a freedom for excellence view, although this is not a condoning of what they did, some people, in fact, became more free because the horrific conditions forced them to cultivate the virtues and have a much deeper appreciation of what is good compared to when they were living comfortable lives in the cities—of which makes their state of being more conducive to their flourishing (notwithstanding the malnourishment, torture, etc. that they were inflicted with of course). The love they acquired for the good, in a much deeper sense, and the virtues which came with it, built saints in those very torturous chambers.

Again, I am not using this example to condone Nazism (and I just say that just in case Jamal decides to read this, lol): it’s just another radical example to juxtapose the two theories of freedom.

Which leads me to:

But freedom in itself does not deal with morality.

In freedom of indifference, this makes perfect sense and I am inclined to agree; for you are thinking of freedom as fundamentally having the ability to choose from options; and so this naturally has no bias towards what is good or bad (and, as a side note, that’s where it gets its name of ‘indifference’).

However, in freedom for excellence, as the name ‘excellence’ suggests, freedom and goodness are interrelated. There is no separation between them such that one can be more free while, for example, acquiring less good. I become more free the more I acquire what is good; whether that be knowledge of what is good, virtues (viz., good habits), or an environment more apt to allow me to realize my nature (e.g., lots of healthy food available, no hard drugs at my disposal to use, time to workout, no gambling, etc.).

I know you disagree, but I hope I have demonstrated sufficiently the differences between our ideas of freedom; as they are central to the discussion so far.

I look forward to hearing from you,
Bob

Apologies for the belated response: I meant to respond yesterday but ran out of time ):

Human rights are rationally agreed upon rights that should be conferred to all people...Universal, non-discriminatory, equal, and ideas that we would like to respect, protect, and fill.
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“If this is true, then what rights we have are tied and anchored in our nature as a human; and so we look at that nature to expose which rights we have and which rights we think we have but don’t.”
— Bob Ross

No objection. We may have to define human nature, but I think we both have a general sense of what that is for now.

I think we will need to dive into what a nature and human nature is; because, to me, the idea that human rights would be necessarily, in principle, universal amongst humans is incoherent with the idea that, in principle, rights are grounded in human nature. This is because ‘human nature’ is not a real nature: (human) femaleness and (human) maleness are human natures that exist within our species. The species itself is an abstraction; and, likewise, ‘human nature’ is an abstraction of the subset of essential properties that (human) males and (human) females share; but the fullness of the real nature that a male or female have is broader than that. In principle, there is nothing restricting rights to only what can be grounded in what each share. Again, why should be believe that two beings of different natures should have the same exact rights—and not just a subset of shared rights—in virtue of their personhood? Perhaps you are open to the possibility of different rights that persons of different natures could have such that they don’t share all the same rights with other persons of different natures; but that, perhaps, there simply aren’t any meaningful differences between them that, in actuality, would warrant different rights. If so, then I would ask you to elaborate more on that.

So you know where I am coming from, I am an essentialist: I think there is a whatness—viz., what it is to be this particular thing contrary to another thing—that real objects (e.g., cars, roads, humans, cockroaches, trees, iron, etc.) have intrinsically. In my case, I account for it with form realism: I think there is a unification, actualization principle of things in matter which provide its innate intelligibility (of what kind of thing it is). Someone else may account for it, for example, by suggesting that each type of thing is that type in virtue of exhibiting some essential set of properties (as opposed to having a unification principle that provides it) and, so, anything that has that set of properties is that type of thing. Admittedly, if one takes the latter route, then it could follow that ‘human nature’ is real; because things could embody multiple natures as a mere collection or aggregate of parts that exihibit different but compatible sets of essential properties (e.g., Bob having brown hair and being a human exhibits both the nature of brownness and humanness). In my case, since the form provides the whatness, I would say that the real essence is embodied in its form, in the fullness of its essence, and this entails that, for humans, their form is what provides their intelligibility as the kind of thing that is a human; and this form is male or female—so ‘human nature’ is an abstraction of what the two forms have in common. In simple words, I don’t think it is possible for their to be a human being that embodies a real nature of ‘humanness’ that is neither male nor female (and I say this knowing about intersex people); but the counter would be obviously that nothing embodies natures in a ‘real’ way like I am describing if forms are not real or they are a set of essential properties something embodies.

My main point would be: why should we believe that the part of ‘female’ and ‘male’ nature that is shared between them is all that we look at to determine their rights if rights are natural?

Are you saying that the definition of human nature can never be subjective, or that a human being's nature can never be subjective?

So, for me, a ‘nature’ is an essence; which is what provides what it is to be this kind of thing as opposed to a different kind of thing; and it can be real (viz., innate and intrinsic as embodied in the being itself: essence realism) or not real (viz., conceptually used by our minds to help categorize similar things: nominalism). To me, valid essences are real and embodied in virtue of the form of a being. So the form, which is the self-actualizing principle of the body that provides it with its whatness (viz., the simple ‘I’ that guides the material processes of the body, which is called a ‘soul’) is what counts as the real nature of the given human; and this nature is never generically ‘human’. Moreover, that nature is embodied in the being independently of what they feel or think about it; so it is stance-independently existent—hence ‘objective’.

You bring up a good point: what about the subjective experience we have? Isn’t that a part of our nature? Yes, but our subjective experience we have is not itself identical to our nature that provides us with being a type of thing that ‘has subjective experience’. To be fair, this is where the differences between essence being a set of properties vs. form get impactful. In my view, your form provides you with being the kind of being that will, under the right circumstances, develop into a being that has experience; but for ‘set theoriests’, for lack of a better term, the being doesn’t have that nature until it exhibits the set of essential properties; so if one thinks that ‘having consciousness’ is essential to being human, then anyone who isn’t currently conscious is not human.

The main point would be that the nature one has is not dependent on the subjective stance you take on it; and that’s all I mean here by ‘objectivity’. I understand, if I remember correctly, you use the terms to distinguish between the qualitative experience we have (viz., subjectivity) and what we are experiencing (viz., objectivity); and I think that schema holds much merit in the context of many discussions, and I agree with you that our nature includes ‘being a subject’.

But if we disregard a person's subjective experience, then we would be able to inflict immense pain on a person without a care or doubt

So, I would say that the nature itself is not identical to the experience we have; our nature entails that we will have such an experience (all else being equal). We do need to consider, to your point, the sensible aspect of our nature, as well as the nutritive and rational aspects, but this is irregardless of if someone is realized sufficiently at their nature. For example, to counter your example, imagine I could drug someone so they won’t feel the pain in your scenario: does that mean I have sidestepped the moral consideration that they are sensibility that are being violated? I wouldn’t say so. I would be purposefully depriving them of feeling which is a privation of their nature; so it is immoral (and I say this knowing that this may sound strange, but by ‘purposeful’ I mean ‘directly intentional’: I may intend to deprive them of feeling as a side effect of the means towards some good end [such as numbing them for surgery to save their life]).

Is there a right that society should have certain subjective expectations of someone with a red hair color? It doesn't seem so. For one, everyone could technically have a different expectation of someone with red hair color
…
I think what you're saying is, "Can there be a human right about cultural subjective expectations?"

This is one of my main points: if ‘gender’ is solely a social expectation, then it has no objective grounding (i.e., it isn’t a social expectation about the real nature of a being—like your ‘biological expectation’ examples); and this means that all social expectations are irrational and immoral. If I expect you to behave some way out of pure subjective feelings or thoughts I have, with no underlying basis in reality, then I am being irrational and immoral because I am viewing you as having an obligation towards submitting to my own feelings are baseless thoughts. This is the consequence of modern gender theory as you outlined in in the OP: ‘gender’ becomes something which we can’t even talk about ‘gender rights’, because those would be just be rights we grant based off of social expectations that have no basis in reality (in objectivity). I understand that’s not what you are really conveying, but that’s the consequence of defining the terms in the way it is defined in the OP (by my lights).

So then if we say, "trans gender rights" the only way for this to make sense is if there are certain human rights being denied to trans gender people simply because they are trans gendered. I think that's the only way this makes sense.

Agreed.

In common, but in common based on biology and function. Do we consider that a person who cannot walk has a particular right that a human who walks does not? Of course we would say its "All humans who cannot walk". In such a way we can say, "All humans who are men". The key here is this cannot be due to a social expectation, it must be based on the objective realities and consequences of biology. I say this as a proposal, not an assertion. I'm curious what you think here.

Are you saying here that the only aspects of male and female biology that matter for consideration of rights is their rational will or intellect? I am not following how the biological and functional differences of women and men wouldn’t be, in principle, taken into account when discussing rights.

Another major difference, I suspect between us, is that I would say that social expectations and obligations can be, if done right, grounded in the real natures of humans; so the ‘biology and function’ of a male or female does legitimately lead to different social roles between them that are grounded in ‘biology and function’. Whereas, in the OP, if I am understanding correctly, the social roles would just always be purely inter-subjective.

In my view I say yes to all three.

I see now you are very libertarian (:

I would briefly note that goodness is the equality of a thing’s essence and existence; so ethics, for me, is going to be centralized around helping realize natures and not the freedom to make choices. I think the main difference here in what you said and my view is that you seem to believe that freedom to make choices (not withstanding you perhaps trying to talk people out of doing bad things or it harming other people) is what freedom truly is about; and I deny this. This is the difference between what’s called ‘freedom of indifference’ and ‘freedom for excellence’. I don’t think freedom fundamentally consists in being about to choose between options; but, rather, consists in a state of being that is most conducive to flourishing.

To really contrast these, let’s rope God into this (;

If freedom is about being able to choose from options (especially contraries), then God is the kind of being that is the most unfree being that could possibly exist because He cannot do evil (and in some views, like mine, He cannot do anything contrary to what is the best option); whereas, if freedom is about being in the best state of being to realize and act in accord with your nature, then God is the kind of being that is the most free being that could possibly exist because He is unimpeded by anything else as a pure intellect, has perfect knowledge of what is good, and has no conative aspect of His being (like the possibility of vices, appetites, etc. overcoming the rational will—e.g., “I really think I should workout, but I really don’t feel like it”).

You can see here how utterly incompatible the modern metaphysic of freedom is to the traditionalist metaphysic.

Freedom for excellence suggests that humans are more free the more virtues they cultivate, the less vices they have, the more knowledge of what is good they have, and the more their environment is setup for their good (viz., their realization and maintenance of their nature as a human); whereas, freedom of indifference would suggest that humans are more free the more options they can choose from without being coerced either way, so this will look like humans being the most free in a society that leaves them do their own devices.

In my view, because I take a different view of freedom, it makes someone less free to give them even the mere option to take hard drugs; and this is bad for them because it makes them less capable of realizing their nature.

Perhaps you would say that even if freedom is in either way expounded above, that we should be able to choose to do evil; and I agree, but not to the detriment of our long-term good. When we parent children, we give them some leeway to make their own mistakes so that they grow to love what is good for them (as someone shoving ideas down their throat doesn't make them love those ideas); but we also safeguard them against themselves so that things that are too dangerous can't ruin their lives.

As always, you have created a thorough and thought-provoking OP. If I may, I would like to give my two cents and hear your thoughts. Out of respect for the OP, I am going to use the terminology in the ways you define them to avoid muddying the waters.

We have many points of agreement from what you said in the OP, but the central issue I have comes out to play here:

Human Rights - Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status
…
Gender – a subjective social expectation of non-biological expressed behavior based on one’s sex. Example: Males should wear pants, females should wear dresses.

In your definition of ‘human rights’, you seem to, and correct me if I am misunderstanding, be acknowledging that rights are innate, inalienable, and grounded in the human as a human being; and this implies that rights are inherent to the nature of a human. There is something it is to be a human, of which both male and female humans have and participate in, and in virtue of this we have rights. If this is true, then what rights we have are tied and anchored in our nature as a human; and so we look at that nature to expose which rights we have and which rights we think we have but don’t.

Now I would like to turn your attention to your definition of gender: “a subjective social expectation of non-biological expressed behavior based on one’s sex.”. A right is, by your ‘human rights’ definition, grounded in the nature of being a human; and the nature of a human is never subjective; so it follows from this, I think plainly by my lights, that ‘transgender rights’ and ‘cisgender rights’ are internally incoherent phraseology in your schema. For gender is subjective (by way of social expectations, expressions, etc.) and rights are grounded objectively (in the nature of the being); so a, e.g., ‘transgender right’ would be a ‘<subjective category of thought tied to sex by a society> <that grounds a right any member of that subjective category has>’.

This is critical to the conversation, I would say, because if this is true then we can’t speak of ‘cisgender’ nor ‘transgender’ rights; instead, it is just ‘human rights’ and every human has such rights indiscriminately of gender. This means that the idea that, e.g., I have the right to use a certain pronoun to identify myself because I am of such-and-such gender is incoherent with your view on ‘human rights’. Instead, I would, e.g., have to argue that something innate to my nature grants me the right to use a certain pronoun (although I understand you were arguing against anyone having such a right).

However, if we are acknowledging that rights are grounded in the nature of a being and this is central to what rights a transgender has; then the question arises: “do all humans have the same rights as humans but not necessarily as male and female?”. That is, are we merely discussing what rights both sexes of our human species share in common; or does the other aspects of their nature not get weighed in for other rights that may not be grounded in their mere human nature but rather their specific nature as a male or female? For example, do women have the right, as women, to refuse conscription but men must fight? Do they have the right to enter a female bathroom space when men don’t? These are considerations that are incoherent with a view that thinks that all the rights humans have are ‘human rights’ as you defined it; because it considers rights that one sex may have that the other doesn’t which, by definition, will not be considered in a generic evaluation of our nature as a human instead of femaleness or maleness. I don’t have the right to go in a female’s bathroom; but women do. The right for me to use a male bathroom is not the same right as the right for females to use female bathrooms: those are two different rights.

I appreciate the fact that you addressed the view that sees transgenderism as a mental illness; and I largely agree with your conclusions from your hypothetical entertainment of it. Here’s something that is important though on that note:

As such, I believe it is a right for people to be able to, of their own free will and money, alter their body as a trans sexual. Bodily autonomy is a human right

You touched on this a bit in the OP; but it is important to note that bodily autonomy does not cover the right to do anything you want with your body. For example, does a suicidal person have the right to kill themselves? Does a masochist have the right to continually cut themselves to the point of risking bleeding out everyday? Does a person have the right to, in modern terms, “rationally and freely” decide to become a drug addict?

The point being, the critical thing that the OP skipped passed is: “what are rights for?”. I humbly submit, they are for allowing ourselves to have the proper ability to realize our natures—to flourish—unimpeded by others. If this is true, then actions we could “rationally and freely” will against ourselves that are sufficiently bad for ourselves would not be covered under rights for our own protection. We would not, then, have the right dangerous immoralities that we could commit against ourselves in a ‘rational and freely willed’ way—e.g., drugs, gambling, pornography, masochism, suicide, etc.

The question then becomes: “is it sufficiently bad for a person’s well-being to try to transition to another sex when it is currently medically impossible to do?”. I would say emphatically “yes”; as it is, I honestly think it is mutilation granted that it doesn’t actually change the body from one sex into the other—we simply don’t have the technology to do that. On these grounds, I would see it like giving someone the option to do meth: that’s not a right one has because it is too dangerous for them—not even in terms of the right to bodily autonomy.

Of course, I know you probably disagree with a lot of this and perhaps you evaluate ‘well-being’ more in terms of modern ‘happiness’ (so maybe transitioning is, under your view, not dangerous at all if ‘happiness’ is central to the good-life); but my main point is that I think the OP needs to weigh in how dangerous something is for a person when calculating if the right to bodily autonomy covers it; and it needs to clarify what it thinks rights are for, as a ‘right’ is a concept we developed to get at something about our nature for ethics. If it isn’t for helping us flourish relative to our nature, then I would need to know what your view is viewing it as.

Cheers

I appreciate your thoughts and I agree: this thread has run it's course and we just need to put this all behind us. I look forward to our future discussions, my friend!

CC: @Leontiskos, @Jamal, @Banno, @Philosophim

Banno has finally clarified what they meant by this DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

What they meant according to a DM today:

I did not report you for making defamatory comments. I reported myself, because you accused me of making such comments.

As anyone can see, the first quote, which is the entire DM message in question, clearly conveys to any person that the sender reported them, not that they reported themselves. I guess @Banno was attempting to make a joke.

In light of this and in hopes of moving forward, I recant my claim about Banno reporting me and chalk it up to a very odd joke by Banno that was not appropriately clarified after the fact.

Just to be clear.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.

There is a point at which further engaging with bigotry is doing no more than providing them with a platform, or the walls to their echo chamber.

You are, as before, alluding to me here as the bigot and someone who will not change my mind (which you’ve stated multiple times now in the thread). That’s contextually what you are referring to with @Philosophim. Do I need to pull up the transcripts of what you have said earlier in this thread? You have never once substantiated any of these claims.

That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

The content of this thread is bigoted

You are alluding to me having a hateful attitude, engaging in petty disparaging, doing pathetic anecdotes, and incentivizing the ostracizing of transgender people from the community. You’ve expressed many times that my views are bigoted and that you would censor them.

Nothing I said was defamatory: it’s true.

If there's something I am misunderstanding, then please let me know and I will be more than happy to apologize if what I am saying is false.

@Jamal, @Philosphim, @Leontiskos

I want it to be on the public record here that @Banno just told me that they reported me for defamatory comments for this response I just gave.

Here's the DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

I am not going to report @Banno back out of spite, because this whole thing is really childish and unnecessary. What I said in that response was as respectful but honest and true as can be; and anyone who reads it can see that.

Bob has literally, explicitly, called multiple subsets of people bad, immoral, and/or crazy

I never once said that people who engage in sexuality immorality are crazy; and you are confusing badness with immorality.

Nope, not a personal attack, except perhaps against his judgement. He might be doing this unwittingly, with the best intentions. But he is doing it regardless.
…
Bob is not only participating in, amplifying, and offering legitimatization of a larger homophobic and especially transphobic movement in this historical moment, especially in this country. But he has implicitly insulted forum members and their loved ones, implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy

This is incoherent. You can’t plead that you are not attacking me and then hurl personal attacks on me. Which is it?

it defies logic that one can keep insisting that nobody should be able to challenge the many flaws in their posts

No one has tried to discuss any flaws in my position, other than @Banno and @Jamal (that I can remember) for a brief moment. You just keep ad hominem attacking me and refusing to substantiate your claims.

 (if Jamal could ban all bigots, the nobody would be able to post here)

Ok, so do you believe that everyone is a bigot then?

yet writing off homosexuality and transgenderism as mental illness or problematic is definetly what i would call bigotry.

If you are good-faith interlocutor, then I give you this challenge: try to play devil’s advocate. Give me a brief account of why I believe that homosexuality is bad as a sexual orientation and immoral as an act; and why transgenderism is a mental illness called gender dysphoria. I will bet you that you will grossly misrepresent my position because you still to this day haven’t engaged with me on the topic in any substantial sense. Prove me wrong.

For example, i'm personally ignoring everything Bob Ross says to me, as he has pulled me into this thread that i've been sick of for a while now

Then please stop calling me seriously bad names without substantiated evidence to back them up. No one has the right to pop into a thread, ignore the actual topic, and gaslight everyone into believing the person is a horrible person.

This is worse than flaming, this is completely manipulative and narcissistic behavior

I’ll give you the transcript. You said in this post that I am a bigot, hypocrite, evangelist, and a transphobe. I responded addressing all of these claims and how they are patently false; and challenged you to demonstrate them with evidence here. You then ignored everything I said with this sidestepping response. I then kindly asked you to substantiate your horrendous claims against my character on this forum here. You responded with hateful comments that were complete red herrings that demonstrated your unwillingness to back up your defamatory claims here. I then rightly pointed out the dodging you are doing and the seriousness of your baseless accusations here. You then, now, ignore me and respond to someone else spewing the same unsubstantiated, hateful claims against my character and, worse yet, trying to gaslight everyone into thinking you are the victim. There’s the tape: you can’t escape the transcript. You have called someone a bigot, transphobe, evangelist, and hypocrite while purposefully evading substantiating the claims. That’s the facts, and I am growing impatient some of these forum members and their unwarranted hostility and uncharitability. .

:heart:

I've tried to discuss this topic with @Banno many times and they keep evading it. All I've asked is that they describe or define 'sex' and 'gender' so that I can understand where they are coming from and hopefully further the discussion. I don't see any other way to progress the discussion, since my definitions are clear and Banno clearly is well versed in Aristotelianism.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.
...
That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

I don't understand why you are DM me that you would like to be omitted from the discussion in this thread, of which I honored and respected, to just inject yourself yet again to spew false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and spiteful comments about me.

Like I said in the DM and in this thread, I need to understand what you mean by gender being social and sex being physical/biologically to be able to discuss with you our differing opinions on this topic. I already clearly defined the terms; and, in good faith, I will do it again.

'Sex' is the procreative nature of a substance; and 'gender' is the natural tendencies of that sex. What do you mean by sex being biological and gender being social? Can you elaborate in depth about that or provide a basic definition of each?

If you truly don't want anything to do with this thread, then please stop interjecting with malicious ad hominems that are unsubstantiated. It's not helping us further the discussion. Like I said before, I would love to discuss this topic with you and hear your thoughts; and, believe it or not, I will concede any points that I am convinced by. I am not a bigot.

I understand, and that is respectable :up: .

There's nothing trolling about it. You accused me of the serious offenses of expressing bigotry, transphobia, hypocrisy, and an evangelism; and are refusing to provide any evidence to support it, which is, be definition, slander and defamation. Don't call people nasty names if you are not willing to have a conversation about it.

But, then, why am I bigot? Or why am I, if you prefer, speaking bigotry?

The people in here are trying to claim that I am a bigot or at least speaking bigotry by saying that transgenderism is bad and transitioning is immoral; but yet when it is transgender person that says it now it all of the sudden isn't bigotted. It's almost like bigotry is never demonstrated through the material act because it involves an obstinate attachment to the belief....

I spent a few minutes looking this up. There is an issue, but mainly with rough, forced, unlubricated entry, i.e. rape. This completely fails to support the absurd claim that anal sex is like smoking and drinking every day.

Anal sex has been demonstrated to be correlated to an increase risk of getting:

1. Fetal incontinence;

2. STDs;

3. Bacterial infections;

4. HPV;

5. HIV; and

6. Anal trauma.

How much of a correlation is there? Scientifically, there is no consensus; but they definitely increase the risk: the anus is clearly not designed to be penetrated, even if it is morally permissible to do so. Now, how much of an increase is worrying enough to not do it? I think this is a mistaken question, as I’ve noted before, because having anal sex is contrary to the natural ends it has—irregardless of how contrary it may be.

However, I will indulge: if someone is thinking about it in terms of “I won’t do it if it is too harmful to the anus”; then I would say fetal incontinence and anal trauma are the biggest risks. The other ones can be mitigated fairly well; but over time the anus loosens up with more anal sex and if done frequently keeps it loose.

The problem with studies now is that there isn’t a lot of them about the link between the above issues and anal sex due to the sexually private nature of it and the political agendas of liberals. Just as they are trying to wipe out the notion that transgenderism is caused by gender dysphoria (by doing things like removing it from the DSM-V), they are also spitting out unsubstantiated articles trying to claim that anal sex is perfectly safe because we lack data on it. It’s a, at best, argument from ignorance—that is, they are saying something is safe to do because we don’t know if it is unsafe to do (due to lack of sufficient studies).

The studies in existence clearly support a correlation between them and if you ever talk to someone that does anal sex you will find that, anecdotally, they have problems with holding in poop—especially right after having anal sex for a while. Some even do exercises to counter-act the loosening of the pelvic area so they can do anal sex on a weekly basis.

Yet, you dismiss these dangers, while being fixated on the somehow unique harm of the activities of one particular population. Why is that?

Maybe we are thinking of two different activities, but mountain biking does not usually, when done right, have a significant risk of any of those. Again, I am not arguing that if there is a risk of danger that one should not do it—that would mean, e.g., I can’t go drive my car because there’s a chance I will get in a crash. I am saying that you cannot use, purposefully, your faculties contrary to their nature. If you think biking is contrary to the natural ends of the body, then please demonstrate how—I am not seeing it.

What do you think of eugenics? Perhaps it gets a bad rap?

You clearly are trying to bait me into saying something bad so I get banned; but, since I am a good-faith interlocutor, I will give you a brief summary of my views on eugenics and I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are on it.

By ‘eugenics’, I understand it to be the selective breeding of humans on the basis of genetics. There are two fundamental kinds of selective breeding: involuntary and voluntary.

Involuntary selective breeding is only permissible when such breeding would produce a grave risk to the state of being and genetics of the offspring and reasonable efforts have been made to respectfully convince the parties involved in that attempted breeding to voluntarily abstain. I am thinking here of examples like incest and inheritable diseases that are extremely bad. The inheritability of the bad condition must be proven to be sufficiently high-risk and the bad condition itself must be sufficiently high-risk.

Voluntary selective breeding is always permissible, as it reflects the right to bodily autonomy. A person has the right to decide who they sleep with and on any grounds whatsoever. People have all sorts of different dating, marriage, and sex preferences; and for many people they do have genetic preferences—especially racial ones.

Having racial preferences in dating and sex may sound weird (maybe?) to Europeans (I am not sure); but in America people of all races here have preferences in terms of who they are more attracted to (which may not even be their own race) and a lot of people in minority groups explicitly prefer their own race preferable. I know a lot of, e.g., black people that will only date black people and want black children. I don’t seek to regulate nor find it immoral for people to choose who they procreate with, have sex with, or date.

I personally do not really care what race a woman is; but I find mixed women usually more attractive then other women.

What are your thoughts?

With all due respect, are you going to accept the challenge to demonstrate the slanderous names you have called me? I think it is rather disheartening that you call me all sorts of serious names, I respond with a thoughtful post addressing all your points, and all you do is half address one minor point I made. Can you please address what I said?

Would you consider that transgender person a bigot then even though they were pro transitioning as a necessary evil?

CC: @Leontiskos

@Banno, @RogueAI, @Jamal, @ProtagoranSocratist

Also, come to think of it, that transgender person I mentioned to @ProtagoranSocratist agreed with me that transgenderism is caused by gender dysphoria, that it is bad, and they even went so far as to say it is immoral to transition; but they believed, as a Christian, that Jesus would forgive them since it saved their life (and so there was an element of consequentialism going there). By your own words and logic, that transgender person is a bigot, transphobic, and prejudiced.

But that's because we treat them as such, not because they are such-and-such a thing.

I apologize, I am not really following your view on a nature. How can something be such-and-such a thing if there is nothing it is to be that thing? Your explanation of ‘tendencies’ seems to deploy realist semantics to convey your point; and it is tripping me up.

If humans do not share a nature, then we cannot say that there is such-and-such a way a human will tend to behave because there is no such thing in reality as a human—no?

Why does it require realism?

I'd say it just requires wanting a tranquil life. For Epicurus he went out and actively recruited people due to his realist commitment, but I don't think we have to be realists to utilize an ethic. We could just want what the ethic wants.

Because you were saying it is eudaimonic: that’s an Aristotelian term that refers to happiness as a biproduct of realizing one’s nature; and you description of Epicurean thought seemed to imply the same thing. I think I just need to understand how you are analyzing what a nature is and then I can circle back to this.

"Natural function" is the same as teleology

They are conceptually distinct. Biology admits of functions of the organs (e.g., the heart pumps blood) but not that there is a design to it (e.g., the heart should pump blood). Which leads me to:

Sure it is! And it's just a way of organizing our thoughts rather than the ontology of speciation

Are you saying you deny that the heart functions in a way to pump blood? I don’t understand how one could hold that: can you elaborate more?

I think we have plenty to discuss in the above, so I will refrain from further comment until I understand your position better.

No worries, my friend! If you ever think of them, then please feel free to let me know and we can discuss.

:heart:

:fire:

With all due respect, your response is full of ad hominems. I don’t think you are doing it unintentionally, as I think you are a good faith interlocutor (and I commend you for that) that simply hasn’t read the thread and is basing their interpretation heavily (inadvertently) on what other people have claimed about me (instead of what I claimed myself).

To be clear, you have now taken the position, by your own words, that I am expressing bigotry, transphobic, hypocritical, and an evangelist. Let’s break all of these down in hopes that we can have a substantive discussion about it.

1. Bigotry. In order for a claim to be bigoted, it has to be something claimed in an obstinate way; and not merely claiming something that is niche, false, delusional, or considered gravely immoral (by the recipient). I would challenge you to demonstrate, through citation, where I have been being stubbornly attached to my position—where I adamantly refuse to consider reasonable critiques—to the point of dying on the hill. I submit to you that, on the contrary, in this thread I have been nothing but charitable to everyone’s critiques (including those that are irrelevant and ad hominems): I have openly stated that I will concede points where I find reasonable evidence to support it. If this is true, then, even if you believe what I hold to be true is widely immoral, my views on sexuality cannot be bigoted by definition.

2. Transphobia. I would define this term as “to be hateful towards transgender people in virtue of their transgenderism” but I concede this is not the standard definition; so let me also address the basic one on google that says it is the “dislike or prejudice against transgender people”. Firstly, as it relates to my definition, I am loving transgender people by acknowledging that they have a mental illness, wanting to cure them, and helping them in whatever way I can to get rid of their body dysphoria; and this is because, in Aristo-Thomistic thought, love is to will the good of a thing for its own sake and goodness is the equality of a thing’s essence and existence. The problem here, is that you, being submerged so thoroughly in liberal thought, can rightly rebuttle that, under your view, to love a person is to will their (hedonic) happiness; and, consequently, it would be, since hate is the parasitic opposite to love, hateful to prevent, e.g., a transgender person from having a drag show or getting surgery if they thought, or perhaps knew, that it would give them relief from their gender dysphoria. Given the definition I gave of love and transphobia, it cannot be true that I am transphobic for wanting to help cure their illness nor because I want to prevent the incorrect exaltation of sex in drag shows. Secondly, the colloquial definition from google requires one of two things to be true: either (1) one dislikes or (2) has a prejudice against transgender people. I would challenge you to cite anywhere where I expressed dislike or prejudice for the transgender person themselves and I will concede. On the contrary, I have openly advocated to love transgender people (which doesn’t mean you affirm their own mental illness as if it is normal), to treat them with respect, and to help them kindly as much as possible. There is a difference, crucially, between hating badness and immorality vs. hating people. I do not hate, dislike, nor have a prejudice against a schizophrenic because they have this bad illness; and likewise the same is true for transgender people. I love the person, hate the evil (viz., badness or immorality).

3. Hypocrisy. A hypocrite is a person who special pleads—that is, they hold some proposition true but not for such-and-such without any reasonable reason for any sort of symmetry breaker. I am not sure why you think I am being hypocritical; but I understand you think that I am blind to the hatred that you seem to think I ‘had it coming’. I would like to stress that even if you are right that I provoked hatred, it would not follow that you should condone the hatred provoked nor blame me for it. The one hating is doing something immoral, not the person being hated.

4. Evangelism. I never once have done anything evangelist on here; and I would challenge you to come up with one example. Evangelism is different than forwarding a position: everyone forwards a position when they are conversing on a topic. Evangelists are actively trying to convert you to a religion. I have not been open about my Christian faith on here; nor have I tried to convert anyone.

transphobic: you expressed interest in banning drag shows

So if I express interest in banning Christian parades, then I am a Christianophobe? What you are doing is defining anything against the predominant view of how we should treat transgenderism as transphobic: this is oddly convenient. What if a transgender advocate group decides to push that murdering cisgenders is perfectly permissible—am I transphobic for opposing that? Where do you draw the line? What definition are you using?

So what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this performative whining? Are you trolling? Are you trying to guilt people into changing their minds and embracing your ideology? You've done this more than once.

I @ you because we had a discussion about this where you denied any of this was happening—including that people were trying to get me banned. I am showing you that the people on here are demonstrating their hatred in an attempt to avoid hatred: it’s an interesting paradox.

I personally did not directly hurl insults at you (homophobe, transphobe, bigot, Nazi, etc.) because I do not like to argue like that, it doesn't bring light to a discussion.

I appreciate that, and I do commend your good faith discussion: I am not meaning to lump you into that crowd.

We are all prejudiced, we can't help but be prejudiced because this is how the survival mechanisms in our brain have been wired overtime, for lack of a better explanation.

Do you believe, then, that everyone is a bigot too? Clearly, when these people are calling me a bigot or prejudiced they are not intending to convey that everyone is one.

If you don't like being called a bigot, then do not express dislike towards transgendered people

I don’t dislike transgender people. Again, you are confusing dislike for the modern-day ideology (that teaches it’s totally normal and tries to affirm their dysphoria) with dislike for the transgender person. Think of it this way, imagine you had a bad case of schizophrenia—lots of unwanted hallucinations causing you to develop depersonalization, derealization, and delusion—and you went to a friend and told them about. Imagine that friend told you that there’s nothing bad happening to you: you don’t have a mental illness. Imagine they proceed to affirm every delusion you have—which is caused by your inability to discern reality from your hallucinations of no fault of your own—to help you be happy. Are they doing you a service? Are they really loving you properly, ProtagoranSocratist? No. Are they necessarily doing it out of malice, spite, or some other immorality? Not necessarily: maybe they don’t understand what schizophrenia really is—maybe they think you really don’t have a problem.

The mods choose the left/liberal bias so that transgender people can post on here.

Look—believe it or not my friend, @Banno, @Jamal, and @RogueAI—I have discussions with transgender people and I do not dislike them nor are we disrespectful to each other. One time I had an long conversation about sexuality ethics and gender theory, in much more political detail than in here, with a transgender person that transitioned to avoid suicide; and we had a respectful, nuanced, thought-provoking, and productive conversation that left me with nothing but sympathy for their condition. It is truly tragic and horrible the suffering many of these people have to go through and overcome. Is that bigoted of me to say too? What makes you think if a transgender read my OP or discussed sexuality ethics with me that they would be disrespected, demeaned, hated, or attacked by me? You are twisting my view that transgenderism is bad into some sort of hatred of transgender people that is completely unsubstantiated. I challenge any of you to cite where I have suggested or demonstrated that I would insult, abuse, demean, disrespect, or attack a transgender person if I were to talk to one on this forum.

You've even clearly broken one of the rules, more than once, about evangelizing a particular point of view

I’ve never once tried to convert anyone to Christianity: I am not sure why you believe that I’ve committed evangelism.

For example, there's this one music service I was using that had a chat room. There was absolutely no moderation. As a result, there's some dude who has been living on there for years who almost constantly spews hatred towards jews.

My friend, with love and respect, the fact that you consider my comments in this thread on par with anti-semitism tells me you have not looked at really anything I claimed in here.

CC: @Philosophim, @Leontiskos, @Jamal, @Wayfarer

@ProtagoranSocratist, this is what I was referring to as the hatred, anti-free-speech, and lack of good faith by my opponents. I have been a member on here for over four years and never have ever had any issues with anyone: I try to be as charitable as I can be to other people's positions and learn something from them (although I fall short sometimes). Simply for providing a robust and sophisticated (albeit not necessarily true) position contrary to modern gender theory and sexuality ethics I have been dubbed a bigot, neo-Nazi, homophobe, prejudiced interlocutor, and widely considered banworthy.

Even @Jamal has expressed in many times, including in the bannings thread, that they consider me lucky that they did not ban me for having an opinion on gender theory and the ethics of sexuality.

The liberal establishment in this forum has exposed its anti free speech sentiments. I wish we all could have productive conversations, in good faith, about important topics like gender theory. All of these insults, ad hominems, threats of banishment, etc. on their part is unnecessarily and does not further the discussion.

The ethics of sexuality and gender theory appear to be irrationally off limits on this forum, even if it is a good faith intellectual and philosophical discussion grounded in widely prominent theories (such as Aristotelianism). Ironically, I've made a thread about defending, to some extent, Imperialism, which is still up, and I was not threatened with banishment nor hated on like I am now. These threats seem politically motivated to me.

To @Jamals credit, they haven't banned me nor censored the thread; and I do respect that.

Jamal, I have to admit, I also find the rules lacking clarity. It seems like there is a lack of checks and balances within the admins. I am not sure how you guys have it setup, but I would appreciate it if you could either explicate or refer me on the forum to what constitutes a banworthy offense. These reasons you give are super vague.

Does the offender get a fair reprimanding warning before banning them?

Likewise, can we implement a notification system for censored posts? I know you've silently censored some of my posts and it would be greatly appreciated if the mods gave them a notification of offenses committed and authoritative actions done to resolve it.

I'm curious where this leaves cross-dressing in your view. Clothes/makeup/jewelry are surely nothing more than symbolic expressions of gender. And so choosing one set of symbols over another cannot be "gravitational", and so can only be a morally neutral expression of personality. Do you agree?

I don’t think attire and aesthetic accessories are purely social (viz., purely how we symbolize gender). For example, makeup is closely connected to women making themselves beautified as a part of their role as the object of sex (which is not to be confused with saying that women should be objectified in the colloquial sense of the term).

A lot of the ways we traditional or even liberally dress are related to masculine vs feminine traits. For example, a traditional dress covers the legs and butt to express female modesty.

To be fair to your point, I don’t know exactly how much of our clothing choices is truly gendered vs. socially constructed; and there definitely are socially constructed aspects to clothing choices.

And so, what to make of male nurses, female engineers, females who gravitate towards being providers and protectors? Insane? Immoral?

A person that exhibits sufficiently the oppose gender of no fault of their own is not doing anything immoral but it is bad. A tomboy girl is a masculine girl, which is bad even if they have done nothing immoral. Ideally, all men would be masculine to a perfect degree and same for women with femininity.

A person that purposefully mimicks the opposite gender is doing something immoral by trying to will what is bad for them; but this isn’t too say that it is a sin like murder.

Wow!!! You will have to cite me some sources on that one. By that last sentence, do you mean, you can't take a shit after???

That can happen too, but that’s a temporary inhibition. The long-term effect is that it loosens the anus which makes it have a hard time keeping poop in.

To be a mountain biker is to sustain injuries, many of which can entail significant impairment later in life. It goes with the territory

Not necessarily, unless you are doing stunts or something. One can safely bike through mountain bike trails without hurting themselves; and just because doing something opens up one to the risk of injury does not mean that it is immoral to do. If that were true, then everything we do would be immoral basically. There has to be a sufficient probability that an act is going to go contrary to the natural ends of the body for it to be unwise and immoral.

Every day of our lives would be thereby be swimming in immorality, and the concept would dissolve into meaninglessness.

We are swimming in immorality. We have no disagreement there.

Thanks, I will take a look.

All @hypericin is doing is ad hoc defining and redefining bigotry because they want it to be bigoted because they view the position that transgenderism is a mental illness as too extreme. I have no problem with people continually refurbishing their definitions (as that's part of the refinement process); but this is just bad faith to me on their part.

But there could still be a use for "nature" in our thinking even if we're not adopting Aristotle's ontology.

Ok, but what is a ‘nature’ then?

You are arguing you can know the ends of things, though. Their teleology. Yes?

Yes.

If that can come to be known over time then by what means do we infer the teleology of organs as you have?

It’s innate to the organ: it isn’t supervenient. That is, the nature of an organ is intrinsic like its weight, size, shape, etc. and not like its extrinsic properties like its monetary value.

The reason I think you are having a hard time conceptualizing it, if I may be so bold (and no offense meant), is because you are failing to see that, even if essence realism is false, my kind of theory views the very same natural organs you do through the lens of them having a nature ‘embedded’ in them (in virtue of their form).

Think of it this way: studying the functions, biologically, of an organ is the same process as studying its teleology. This is not to say that we have to understand teleology through the scientific method, but just to convey it to you I think that’s the best example I can give that you may be able to relate to. E.g., based off of what this liver is doing, what is made up of, its size, how it relates to the other organs, etc. it seems to be for filtering out toxins (as well as other stuff). One natural end it has is to detoxify the blood which is done through its natural functions, such as its enzymes that break down toxins into less harmful substances.

... it was explicitly your description of the anus' teleology that got me started on this line of thinking.

Let me reword it in a way that you might be on board with: the anus’ natural functions are such that it secretes and holds in poop. That’s what it does for the body. You may divorce the functionality from teleology, but let’s start there.

This is your Argument 1. There is either Realism or Nominalism. Nominalism is not tenable, ergo Realism.

No, I have not given an account of why someone should accept realism: I was noting that you are a nominalist and you are an epicurean that accepts eudaimonia which requires realism. You are holding two incompatible views.

I'm not claiming nominalism. I'm speaking in my own words and not as part of a category of people with such-and-such beliefs well known, unless nominalism really is nothing but the belief that essences do not exist.

Nominalism is the view that essences are not real: you are denying realism about essences, so you are a nominalist. Semantics aside, you are still affirming realism about natures in a way that doesn’t seem coherent; but I’ll wait to elaborate on that until you give me your account of what a nature is.

Since we're a social species who learns roles and desires to fulfill them hedonism can explain sacrifice.

How can it though if you are claiming that Epicureanism is Aristotelianism without the social obligations derivable from one’s nature? Typically, the father has to lay down his life for his kid because he is their father who is has the natural role in the natural family as the provider and protector.

I've read through the first 7 pages of this discussion and encountered a lot of noise, along with a few gems. Apologies if skipping the next 10 has made me miss anything relevant to my inquiries.

No apologies needed: most of it was red herrings and ad hominems.

1. When you say divorcing sex and gender makes for "an ahistorical account", do you mean it is an account that does not agree with the historical usage of the term 'gender'?...Or do you mean, as some people here (don't remember who) seem to have thought, that it was disconnected from queer history and the like?

I don’t mean to deny that ‘gender’ is connected to queer history; but that it’s normal usage has never been like it is today. Now we are seeing people using the gendered terms in completely two different senses; and of which they believe are completely or vastly separated from each other.

2. I am not sure what you mean by 'the symbolic upshot of sex'. The Mars symbol ( ♂ U+2642 MALE SIGN = Mars, alchemical sign for iron) is of course a symbol, but it seems quite arbitrary that it is attached to the male sex, or for that matter to Mars or iron.

When a symbol is in some way representing a gender, it is a valid symbol of gender; but gender itself is not about symbols. You are right that a symbol can be loosely or tightly related to what it signifies (e.g., the redness of the Templar cross resembling blood seems much more closely connected to martyrdom than red representing 'to stop'). We could debate what counts as a good symbol vs. a poor symbol, but I think we would both agree it has to do with how well what symbolizes the thing relates to that thing. The Mars symbol doesn’t seem as closely related to maleness as the shape of a man on a public bathroom door, for example.

When you refer to "the very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions ... that are studied in gender studies", it would seem more relevant to give as examples typical or stereotypical male or female behaviors, such as dominance or submissiveness, interest in things or interest in people.

I was just giving the standard description of gender that liberal gender studies uses: it’s all social and not ontologically connected to sex; and it has to be for their ideology to work, since they want to claim that a person can become, e.g., non-binary by simply not expressing themselves as a part of the male or female gender—this only works if gender is purely socio-psychological.

On the contrary, my theory suggests that, under the revised version (let’s say), gender and sex are not really distinct but are virtually distinct; and so we can conceptualize them as different, insofar as gender is the natural tendencies of sex and sex is the procreative nature of the substance, but in reality they are not separable. If this is true, then gender is not social at all: masculinity, e.g., is separable from the social understanding of it and so the social expressions and expectations are not a part of gender itself.

One thing to note is that I think we're a social species, for instance, so "social construct" does not thereby mean "not real" as is often mistakenly taken to be the case.

Well, it wouldn’t be real; because reality is objective, and socially constructed ideas are inter-subjective (even if they are expressing something objective).

Our agreement that vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream ever and that anyone who disagrees is an ice cream heretic has inter-subjective existence.

In the ontology of atoms and void the gods do not care about you and there is no afterlife so theological goods are distractions from pursuing our true nature

Ok, would it be fair to say that Epicureanism is the same fundamental, naturalistic project that Aristotle is doing but it focuses on well-being of the organism independently of an ordering to any higher goods? For example, it seems like Epicureans would say that sacrificing yourself as a father for your son is not good; because it goes against the immanent well-being of the father and there is no recognition of the higher good that relates to the father’s role as the father.

I tried to address your concerns in the preceding paragraphs.

You didn’t address it though. To be clear, you are both denying and accepting the existence of natures. Which is it?

Do you, on the one hand, believe that things have natures that they can realize to live a happy life (as you describe with Epicurus) or do you deny the reality of natures altogether? This seems internally incoherent to me.

That's perfect acceptable to me -- but then it seems you can't make normative claims like:

All of those are descriptive claims. The fact someone has a nature is not a prescriptive claim in the Humean way. I am simply stating that there really is a nature to a human, irregardless if one should follow it or not.

The nature of things is that obvious that we can just say, by looking at something, what it is for, what it's proper purpose is, what its essence is. But that doesn't seem like the sort of conclusion you'd want, either

I am not arguing that we can know everything about the nature of something at first glance: we’ve impacts the natures of many things over many thousands of years. It’s an empirical investigation: it is not a priori.

 If the latter then The Kinsey Report isn't "in the game"

Nothing about what people report about themselves is itself a normative claim, so I am not following you here.

 If we play the former we play Hume's Guillotine then I'm pointing out modern medical ethics. as well asIf we don't play Hume's Guillotine Epicureanism is a possible other way of thinking on the question of sex, gender, and boning.

Ok. We aren’t discussing the ethics involved in the medical industry nor what should be the ethic there: we are discussing what gender and sex are. I think you are jumping to my ethical views on sexuality when I have not imported it into the OP’s discussion.

Likewise, Epicureanism may be an alternative: we would have to explore that; but it definitely doesn’t seem coherent with nominalism (which you accept since you reject essentialism).

Would it be fair, then, to say that you believe water is water, as opposed to something else, because of its structural (molecular) makeup (viz., H2O)?

Please refer me to your answer, then.

How do you distinguish a "gravitational expression of gender" from a "personality type expressing gender"

Good question. There is no such thing as a gender expression that is an expression of personality (in the stereotypical sense of ‘personality’ which is [inter-]subjective) under this view: there are just gravitational and symbolic expressions of gender.

A personality trait is any trait that a person has as a matter of their psychological persona; whereas a gravitational expression of gender is the natural tendencies that a person has due to their sex. Since personality is influenced by natural tendencies, the personality of a person will reflect those tendencies to some imperfect extent (depending on various factors).

You seem to be importing a notion of morality people do not use

My friend, this is natural law theory and Aristo-Thomism: it is a very popular view in metaethics and normative ethics.

Since Divine decree won't cut it here you are relying on purported self harm.

Natural law theory claims that we are decreed by God to follow our nature; so the idea that you can separate out harm (in general: not just self-harm) from Divine Law is a false dilemma if the thesis stands.

 But if that were enough to substantiate immorality then eating desserts and mountain biking would also need to be condemned

They would not be immoral under Natural Law. Neither of those in and of themselves inhibit the body from realizing its natural ends. Now, depending on the context (e.g., dessert gluttony, rash biking, etc.) it may be immoral because it does inhibit it.

We don't generally consider minor harms associated with voluntary activities to indicate immorality, be they elevated cholesterol, sprains and breaks, or anal tears

You kind of smuggled in anal sex here; but it is nothing like the other examples you gave. Anal sex is like consistently drinking alcohol your entire life; or smoking. It has permanent damage that occurs over time. Even doing it once inhibits the anus for a while at doing its job.

This "immorality as self harm" reminds me of drug prohibition. Here too draconian punishments for even simple possession are justified in terms of self harm. Even though, little effort is taken to substantiate

Are you taking the position that self-harm is not immoral?

I was asking you a question. Do you believe that gender is social and biological; or neither; or a combination of those and other things?